Political Notebook: $6.5M spent on mayor's race

Fletcher said: “In college, I was a bouncer at a bar. When people say all they do in politics is fight, I’m your guy.”

Vargas attacks Ducheny for paying husband

Congressional candidate Juan Vargas has launched another scathing mailer targeting his Democratic rival Denise Moreno Ducheny, this time for paying her husband’s political consulting firm more than $730,000 while campaigning for the state Legislature.

Al Ducheny said the consulting fees covered everything from utilities to employee salaries, including maintaining a full-time secretary to help with fundraising and other campaign work. He said he maintained the office and various databases and didn’t draw a regular salary.

The money also went to organizing conferences designed to forge relationships between elected officials in California and Mexico, he said.

Vargas’ mailer lambasts Ducheny for taking money from special interests such as banks, oil and utility companies and the tobacco industry and then paying her husband to run her campaigns.

“In her 2002 and 2006 races, Ducheny paid her husband $350,000 even though none of her opponents raised more than $25,000,” Vargas’ mailer states. “From 2007 to 2008, when Ducheny was not a candidate for office, she still paid her husband $176,669.21 for ‘consulting services.’”

It accuses Denise Moreno Ducheny of funneling contributions into her own pocket.

Al Ducheny said he and his wife were “always in low-campaign mode,” and that the campaign saved a considerable amount of money over the years by working with the Southern Group and not paying regular fees to outside consultants and fundraisers.

“I was a pretty cheap consultant,” he said.

Al Ducheny, who has worked on his wife’s campaigns for the community college board, Assembly and state Senate, added that it was common practice for state lawmakers to pay their spouses for campaign-related services.

Despite the practice being legal, he said he avoided taking a paid position with his wife’s congressional campaign because he suspected Vargas would make an issue of it.

“We figured we would be hit. We knew it would be used by Juan Vargas. That’s the kind of guy he is,” Al Ducheny said. “It’s just throwing mud. That’s just what he does.”